Name: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla reflects on unprecedented vaccine development
Uploaded: 2021-02-02
Duration: 20 min 10 s
Description: Fortune Editor-in-Chief Clifton Leaf talks with Bourla about the remarkable development process.

Fortune Editor-in-Chief Clifton Leaf talks with Bourla about the remarkable development process.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla reflects on unprecedented vaccine development

Health

Fortune's Leaf talks with Bourla about the process.

Pfizer CEO reflects on unprecedented vaccine development

March 1st. It's only the second death in the United States. We've seen a lot of cases of coronavirus around the world. We've seen, uh, being clearly indications of a of a runaway spread, but still, even it's hard to imagine. But March 1st is nothing like what we've seen now. And you make the determination to go all in on a coronavirus vaccine, uh, putting a lot of money at risk. You're only a year or so into into your job as CEO. This is a massive bet, and I just kind of want to have you take us through what that was like. It was like a massive bet, but it was a very necessary one. There are not many companies that they have capabilities in vaccines, but they're Antolin that they can start from early research and going all the way. Not only the manufacturing, but distributing, which is also challenging with vaccines. So the question that was in my mind, if not us, then who and the world needed at that moment something to be done. So I was very clear to my my team. Tell me, how can we have a vaccine? You come and tell me what you need. They told me These are the things that we can do. These are the technologies that we have. And, uh, these are the pros and cons and our recommendations to go with RNA. And, uh, the the talents in my mind was not that I don't trust the scientists. They are. I know them very well. It was that I asked him that Is it true that there was no vaccine made before? With marinade technology? We are successful. That will be the first one. And they said yes. So and then it was against Let's go. And then they told we don't have an agreement then with them. This is nice. If we agree, we need to agree with them as well said, Go ahead and make one. And then, uh, this is when they came back and said, Yes, we are very interested to do it, and but we want to do it very fast. And the biotechs is also we want to do it very fast. He said, Let's start. Then the contract will come And they said Yes. So we started and we started investing. They started sharing their data with us without even a contract. You talk about the ability, uh, and quite presently to talk about if you've got a mutating virus the speed at which you can change, Uh, you know, that part of the vaccine that can, uh, can target the changing virus that the different D n A. And the virus. Um and so this was one of the fundamental reasons why you chose that M RNA vaccine construct. That was one of the reasons. Exactly. It wasn't the only one, but speed was of the essence, and flexibility was of the essence. And this was exactly the reason why 1000 this for flu flu has the same characteristics. Every year is a different flu. It's never the same flu. So every year the vaccines that were getting for floor different vaccines than the year before, and I know how long it takes to develop. And people are starting in March for the new variation of the vaccine, and they end up having a vaccine in September when the flu comes out on October. So it takes really a lot of months, and we knew that when you make a decision in March for something that you will give in September, October, November, December. You may get it wrong. You may create a vaccine for different mutations and the ones that will survive. But that's what you can do because that's the limitations of your science. The RNA could disrupt them because you can do in weeks what you can you need months. In the other cases. You start human trials in May and you've got approved drugs in November. I mean, you must marvel about that. You're thinking about it. I'm proud of the people that did it. I didn't I didn't discover it. I didn't run the studies. I was leading the team that did all of that. And the scientists I told you about 18 months, uh is the earliest they can do. They knew what they were talking about. They were not stupid people. Actually, they were very knowledgeable people because that's exactly what might involve. And my team knew, exactly also, what would it take? And when they told me 18 months, that was, I think, much by breaking any other records that pre existed so that they can do that. It was very clear, and, uh, I have said many times. My challenge was how to make them believe that they can do the impossible possible. Right? And this is where the second wave of the seasons came. Like don't take the money from the from the from the government. Very big bet. But we were already in when we did this bad. I told them, Go ahead And we are now all hands on that. So whatever you need And then when the offer came, we can finance There were billions that were flowing around, uh, to everyone of us, right? I thought a little bit. What would it take to take the money? Because it was the easiest thing to take them. But I realized that if they give you money, there is no way that they will not want to sit on the table. How are you going to do it? Because we give you the money, How you give the money? Because we give you the money. Give us a report. Don't give us in darkness. We want to understand. And I knew that already within a massive company like Pfizer, we have a lot of bureaucracy to deal with. And I was betting that I will take over control. So as the ultimate decision making in the company, I will waive all bureaucracy will say you talk to me directly. I'm replacing world governing bodies. I'm making the decision. But I couldn't do that if I was taking the money. I knew that will never be able to make the impossible possible if we wouldn't do that. And keep in mind that we started much later than Madonna, for example. But also we didn't need the money. I'm sure Madonna needed them, right, But we didn't need the money. Now, if we were failing, what was it going to be? Very painful. Absolutely. There's a lot of money. We're talking about billions. But, uh, if we were failing, was that going to be the enter visor? Absolutely not. This is why I was put in this position, to be able to take the right risks, not to be reckless, but also not to be conservative and not move when the whole needs us. As you know, there's been a lot of complaint about the rollout of the vaccine. How would you characterize that roll out there? To face is the face that I was worried a lot. There is the face that I'm sending to the fighters sending the vaccine to the vaccination centers that every country is asking us to do. That was our responsibility to do it. Unfortunately, we were able, fortunately to do that very difficult logistical step. Quite successful. We were able to see almost 99.99% successful segments on time without any issues on the quality, because we were monitoring the temperatures on every single box that we're sending of these thousands of bucks. But a lot of the countries, including the US they were not ready, uh, to distribute those vaccines. They didn't have enough capacity, the vaccination centres, I'm sure that and I hope that all of them will get their act together. They will change their plans and they will be able to increase dramatically the vaccination rates. But and then, if they do that, we may have a period that we are the bottle bank and we need to produce much more. And we are preparing for that. We have announced recently that you are increasing from 1.3 billion to $2 billion. Is the current variants that we've seen some of these mutations that are much more transmissible, Uh, it seems than than the traditional sars-cov-2 virus, Um, the UK variant and now the South African variant and and some others right now, what have you learned from your vaccine In terms of its ability to neutralize those variants? We are quite confident right now that we can neutralize this variants. We have proved that in on the lab, and this experiment that we did in our own labs has been already replicated in multiple labs in universities and hospitals. So I feel very confident about it right now, we are covering both of them. So as we vaccinate, I think, uh, UK and South Africa were covered. I think the fundamental question is what are the chances that the new mutation that will not be covered by the vaccine could emerge, and no one can be certain, But theoretically is a very possible scenario if you protect very big part of the population, if there is a strain that emerges that they can use this pool of population to replicate, while the current trends cannot because they are protected, obviously this will overtake uh so it's not a certainty, but it is now. I believe it likely scenario, but that will happen. That proves also even more the case that you needed an M RNA because now you can very quickly develop a new version of the vaccine. That other adds to the current. Uh, let's say immunogenicity or, uh creates a very different one that can cover. Also the new meditation. So very important is quickly. We're just just Are we talking weeks? We're talking days that help. I believe that will depend on multiple factors. One of them. It is the regulatory framework. I believe we will be able within two months to be able to have it six weeks to have it and then give it a little bit of a cushion there. Two months. And of course, we will be taking risks to develop at risk manufacturing and all of that, Yeah, but I think we'll be as quickly as two months or so. I think the biggest challenge that you face, though, is moving from the science and the logistics into the politics of it. I know you were wary of that. What sort of eye opening experience was This was a whole different games completely different than what I was expected and let me clarify something. The October timeline was a timeline that I said in the March meeting. I was thinking that October is the flu season, and I knew that this is when things will go back way into that and when the possibility of having into vaccine started becoming reality, Which means after he, uh, had the first data announced and then, uh, starting our face three trials, uh, then people started speaking about the political implications of having a vaccine or not before the elections. And when I realized that when I heard the first presidential debate and the covid and the vaccine was discussed in political terms rather than scientific terms, this is when I made the statement the next day that, you know, some people want us to do faster. Some people want us to do it slower, I'll tell you, will go with the speed of science and so big. And then the October was too early. Then suddenly it came a little bit after, So it came a week later in November because we can overcome them. And then suddenly what for some was too early. Now for some, for the others became too late. And, uh well, what can we do? I tried hard to navigate this, frankly political minefield. And one of the reasons also why we didn't take the money. The second one was that because also, if you take government or money, then everything that you do is becoming even more, uh, let's say politically charge in the new administration. Obviously, this is going to be an opportunity for you to sort of help set some of the agenda for for reform. Um, you know, pricing reform and things like that. How will you go about that? Let me first clarify that I am a very, very strong believer that reform is needed. I'm a very strong believer that the current started school is not sustainable, and it is not desirable. And I'm also in a position to say that the vast majority of my peers, they are already in this camp. Everybody says that we need to make change. The question is what changes. What are the changes in the right direction? And I believe the policies that needs to be followed right now they need to have two fundamental pillars. There needs to be pro innovation and probation. They need to be pro innovation because we need a vibrant industry. But we'll be able to produce innovation that will help the society. And we need pro patient policies because we need to make sure that everyone will be able to have access. So what can become sometimes very expensive technology right now coming to the second piece, which is one of the major debates in the US, which is the drug price, the drug pricing, the cost? There are two different topics. Speaking about drug price one it is. What is the cost of medicines to the system, for example, to Medicare to the federal budget. The second is what is the cost of medicines to the individuals, the individual that goes to the pharmacy and he has to pay something for his pocket to get the medicine. Those who are very different one from another. For example, the first one represents 12% of the overall health care costs, so by definition, cannot be the big problem. Okay, no matter how expensive it is, when you go go to the patients, the people that are going to buy their medicines. This is by far their biggest talents because right now the Americans are paying for their medicines like if they don't have insurance, although they do have they pay everything from out of pocket. That needs to change now to change that, which means to move costs out of the patient friends. Someone is debate because it's not a zero sum. If that's the policy, we are willing to contribute a lot. We're going to take over a very big part of the out of pocket costs for the patients. Right now. I don't say that, and I don't think anyone will say it's fair, but we take all of it, but we are willing to take our further and even more. But this is where the money should go. I don't think that the money should go to cover the black hole of federal budget that will grow and grow and grow and will never find a solution. We must find a solution, and we must find it now this year that Pfizer, uh, you've now promise for or as projected, rather that that you'll have 6% revenue growth for a number of years. Uh, that's that's significantly above where the company has been for the last couple of years. Um, you know, you're you're still confident in that trajectory. So I'm very confident now, And, uh, also, I want to say that we started by saying we are projecting 6%. And now it's almost several months that we change the language to at least 6% for us. 6% is not the ceiling is the floor. And I'm very confident excluding anything coming from covid right now. The covid vaccine, right. I'm very confident that the remaining of the business will Yes, we'll deliver these numbers. And to that we need to add, and whatever the final impact of the covid 19 vaccine will will give. We haven't released any protections for that. I believe on the revenues will be higher than three billion. You know, I'd like to spend a few minutes on you in your life story. Is there some perspective you've got from your training as a veteran area? Uh, maybe opens your eyes up to two challenges that others may not see. I believe everything that it is a little bit out of the ordinary helps bring different perspectives. And I had a few of that. As I said, As you said, I'm veterinarian. And, uh, that helps you understand this time and so I can communicate with those people. But also working in the animal health group of Pfizer, I realized that was when I moved to the human health back 10, 11 years. Now I realized that the animal health was much more. Uh huh. Customer focus. Mhm. Then the big farmer, the big farm at the time that I joined was very much brand focus. It was the brand that matter. Never in our animal health group. It was the customer. Doesn't matter. It was the owner and the dog. It was the veterinarian. So I helped me bring that perspective, I think very clear. Also coming from a small country, Uh, but, uh, with glorious history, like Greece, but with the current reality. But it doesn't have a very big seat on the international table. So you learn how to fight to bring what you want to bring on this table, because it's not going to be easy to allow you to come even close to being a Jewish in a country that the Jewish population was almost exterminated during the Holocaust. Trying to be adoptive, trying to be much more flexible in the society so that you can survive. My mother was arrested and survived. My my father, uh, was hiding and survived, but it was not the same with their families. Right? So the brothers parents, etcetera, they were exterminated. So, uh, yeah, that that gave me, uh, identify the interesting case that my parents never looked back. They never talked to me. Uh, who did that to us? They need to pay. It was always, you know, we move forward. Life is very valuable. Let's move ahead. Let's enjoy the fact that in my career and Pfizer I lived in eight different cities of five different countries, made me appreciate the difference and the power of diversity and how every culture is unique and brings things on the table. And you will be very sensitive to that. All of us were perspectives that I brought that helped me become who I am, and I think everything help